tennis

March 2019 Fun

March 25, 2019 by Rebecca Whitehead

We had a very rainy and unusually cool winter, which bled into spring. All the rain made everything green and gorgeous! We didn’t have time for everything on our bucket list this summer, but we did check off quite a few.

Hiking at Casper’s Wilderness Park.

Meredith loved school and begged to go more than two days. On Wednesdays, all the girls stayed for an extra hour and loved doing fun projects with Miss Erica, who is the Queen of Pinterest Projects. Every Wednesday, the girls would groan when I came to pick them up and asked to stay longer.

Samantha and Amelia were jealous of the fruit loop rainbow project Meredith did in her class, so we did it at home.

St. Patrick’s Day chocolate pancake breakfast.

St. Patrick’s Day at school.

Visiting with Great Grandpa!

During one horrible week, the girls were sick with fevers, snot and coughing, all within a few days of each other. Amelia was so sad about going to school by herself… until she got to go on a special Daddy Daughter date for waffles.

Once Samantha was all better, she went on a Daddy Daughter sandwich date.

Helping with treehouse construction.

I am Meredith. Hear me ROAR.

Playing 52 card pick-up.

Building epic block towers and screaming when Monster Baby Eleanor crawled over to destroy the city.

Eleanor’s favorite homemade mac n cheese.

Someone went overboard on the bubbles.

So proud she can stand!

Scooter ride around the neighborhood while sisters were in school.

Tennis practice.

In March, the twins stayed after school for an art class with the 1st grade teacher, Miss Iumi.

Their final cute paintings.

Softball was in full swing, with a practice and game every week. While the girls tolerated practices (mostly because of the tag games they played plus donuts), they alternated between staring off into space and refusing to run after the ball at all during the actual games.

Jake: “Why don’t you run after the ball, Sammy?”

Sammy: “Because someone else will get it.”

They did like trying to hit the ball and running the bases! The first few games, they played the game with no tagging outs, but the last few games, the coaches decided the girls were ready to play for real. The first time Sammy got tagged out, she cried hysterically and refused to play. She sure ran fast the next game though and never got tagged again.

Art and writing projects!

Amelia was no match for this 27-pound baby.

Meredith and her bestie, Maple, at our Tuesday park date.

The girls climbed the tree at the end of our cul-de-sac every day after school.

Sammy the sloth.

Eleanor’s favorite pastime.

Sammy in her natural habitat.

More science and art projects!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: art projects, caspers wilderness park, creek, daddy daughter date, eleanor swings, Great Grandpa, hike, hiking, kindergarten, Maple, March 2019, miss erica, miss iumi's art class, neighborhood, park, preschool, school, schoolwork, scooter ride, softball, spring bucket list, st. patrick's day, tennis, treehouse

Grandpa’s 89th Birthday and Post-Christmas Fun

December 29, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

After Christmas, Auntie Lynn threw Great Grandpa a party to celebrate his 89th birthday (90th year!). Mike and Ali came from Wyoming, Sarah and Mike from Portland, cousins from LA, and the rest of us local family and friends celebrated at Wood Ranch in the Irvine Spectrum for Great Grandpa’s big day.

Family photos by Aunt Sarah!

All the grandkids and great grand kids.

The girls were excited to have extra family around to carry them.

Uncle Mike and Meredith.

Cousin Ben thought carrying around Eleanor would be a good bicep workout. He was right.

Ali and the chunk-a-monk.

Eleanor was excited to sit with Grammy at dinner.

The kids table was a little crazy.

Cousins doing what cousins do.

Must…touch…sparklies.

Happy birthday, Great Grandpa!

While most of the grown-ups chatted at the restaurant after dinner, the rest of us high-tailed it out of there for a walk around the Spectrum before the kids trashed the place.

Good thing Ali, Mike, Sarah and Mike were there to help carrying screaming/tired girls!

Meredith and Hailey were so cute! Two-year-old Hailey borrowed 6-month-old Eleanor’s coat for the evening and it actually fit!

A trip to the Spectrum would not be complete without a ride on the ferris wheel.

Ferris wheel photos by Aunt Sarah.

While we had aunts and uncles in town, the girls took them rock climbing at Sender City. This time, Meredith joined in for the first time and was pretty fearless.

We attempted lots of board games while we had family in town, even though they nearly always ended in tears. Samantha and Amelia are not the best gracious winners or losers, despite our best efforts.

Roasting s’mores with the fun aunts and uncles.

With all the extra hands, I got a lot of projects done while Grammy and Grandpa took on outings to the park.

Too much fun with their new chalk markers.

During the break, we also had a Secret Santa gift exchange with the Nguyens and the Erpeldings, which was supposed to be before Christmas, but we ended up having to reschedule. Since all the kids are in different schools, it’s been a long time since everyone has been able to play at the same time! Sheela had the kids draw names at the beginning of the month and wrote up cute letters for everyone, giving a few gift ideas for each kid received. The girls were so excited to see their friends open their gifts and announce that they were the Secret Santas. They also loved all the bonus gifts they got!

Practicing the art of balancing on the slack line with the neighborhood kids.

Practicing our tennis swings.

Amelia’s swing is getting pretty good!

Grammy watched Eleanor at home while I took the girls to the zoo. It felt like a lot less work just having three for a change.

We saw our friend, Brian, who works at the entrance!

All aboard the ferris wheel.

Jake and I celebrated our anniversary by staying at Pelican Hill Resort in Newport while Grammy and Grandpa watched the kids. Beautiful views and sunsets!

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: ali, anniversary, ben, ferris wheel, gerin, Grammy, Grandpa, Great Grandpa, Great grandpa's 89th birthday party, hailey, irvine spectrum, mike, Noah, pelican hill, rock climbing, santa ana zoo, Sarah, secret santa, sender city, tennis, uncle mike, wood ranch

Thanksgiving 2018: Maui

November 23, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

On Thanksgiving Day, we left at the break of dawn for LAX, and after lugging four carseats, a stroller and all our gear through the airport, we exhaled as we took off on our 8:30 a.m. flight to Maui. We felt like we had conquered the world making our flight with everyone in one piece!

We took up two rows, with Jake sitting by Meredith and Samantha and Amelia and I across the aisle. We took turns tossing Baby Eleanor back and forth, which I’m sure the lady on the end of the row didn’t appreciate, but didn’t say anything.

A very peaceful flight! Amelia and Samantha were great and played games, watched movies and colored the entire flight. Meredith started getting antsy toward the end, but was overall better than expected during the nearly six hour flight. Eleanor had her moments of crying, mostly from being overtired and unable to nap on her normal schedule. Fortunately, we were on a party plane with tons of little kids, so her noise just blended in to the rest of the chaos.

The worst was Eleanor having two blowouts on the plane. Good thing I packed several back-up outfits for her. It’s already tough for Jake to fit in the tiny airplane bathroom himself, let alone to change a baby, but somehow, he did it! Sick of being stuck in their seats by the end…

We were so happy to be off the plane! The heat and humidity hit us with a blast as soon as we stepped off the plane and waited for our bags. All that pent-up energy and hunger finally took its toll and we endured lots of tears and tantrums grabbing our bags and car seats. It felt like an impossible task herding all the kids, bags, four car seats and baby gear through the airport to grab our car, but somehow we made it.

We rented our car through Turo, which is supposed to eliminate the hassle of going to the car rental place and waiting forever since our guy was supposed to pick us up directly outside the terminal. There was some kind of mix up, and we ended up having to lug kids and gear and all through a construction area of the parking lot, waiting for what seemed like forever (fifteen minutes in reality) for the guy to find us. No one was in a good mood when we finally got the car straightened out and I kept thinking how ironic this was that we were all cranky in paradise!

After playing tetris trying to fit all the car seats and bags in the SUV, and dealing with screaming kids, we were about ready to call it a day and go home! In hindsight, we should have just rented car seats from the car rental guy, but I’m always wary of using other people’s car seats and how dirty they are/wondering if they’ve ever been in an accident. Jake was cursing me the entire trip for insisting we lug our own! It certainly would have made the airport 90% more doable.

With a fresh change of clothes, hydrated and fed, and finally on the road, everyone calmed down and enjoyed the lush, green scenery and smell of tropical flowers as we drove to West Maui.

After unloading at the condo, we were still on California time and starving, so we walked to Kaanapali Beach for an early dinner at Hula Grill.

I was worried the kids would be too cranky from our long day to handle dinner out, but they did great! Everyone, but Eleanor, that is. Two second after we sat down, Eleanor had the pooplosion of all pooplosions on Jake! And this was AFTER pooping twice on the plane! It oozed out of her diaper, all over her clothes and Jake’s clothes, and onto the chair! Wipes would not suffice to clean up the epic mess, so Jake left the restaurant with her while I tracked down a waiter who mopped up the mess with nice white cloth napkins! They were so gracious about it and even though the restaurant was full of old people curiously observing our family, no one said a word, although I’m sure they were horrified for us as poor Jake walked out with poop all over himself! NOT how we imagined spending Thanksgiving dinner.

Jake was back 30 minutes later. He had to go into one of the shops to buy a new change of clothes for himself after he changed Eleanor.

Happy Thanksgiving 2018! We were sad to miss our annual Friendsgiving with the Erpeldings this year!

After our Thanksgiving turkey dinner, we walked along Kaanapali beach and basked in the warm sunset.

Practicing their hula moves.

We forgive you, Eleanor, for pooping all over the place!

Eleanor didn’t seem to care that we in Maui and wanted to be home in bed, stat!

Whitehead Family Thanksgiving 2018

Enjoying the Maui sunset.

On our way back to the condo, we stopped in the little shops and enjoyed the live music. It was a very festive Thanksgiving!

The next day, the girls and Jake made pancakes at their new favorite breakfast place– Slappy Cakes. They had their own griddle and made their own pancakes with their own toppings– the girls’ dream restaurant! They wanted to go there for all of our meals.

The rest of the morning, we hung out at the condo because my breast pump broke! Jake drove a round-trip 2 hours to the island’s only Target to buy me a new one… on Black Friday! Total nightmare situation. Meanwhile, back at the condo, I tried to keep all four girls occupied– we played tennis, walked around, fed the koi fish, went to the beach, and tried unsuccessfully to nap in the condo. Despite the condo being two levels, so that we could split up the girls into separate rooms, the twins were just too wired to calm down enough and the noise kept Meredith up. Needless to say, everyone went to bed early that night and I was at the end of my rope by the time Jake returned from braving the crowds at Target, victorious, with my pump!

Playing tennis until we got kicked out for not wearing tennis shoes.

I picked this particular Air BnB because of all the kids’ stuff they had– everything imaginable! Rock n plays, strollers, pack n plays, baby toys, baby jumpers, bouncers, sand toys, snorkel gear, toys, crafts, movies, board games and snacks. The girls loved it! The kids stuff was great, but the condo was a little smaller than I had anticipated and the air conditioner was set so that you had to turn it back on every three hours… Eleanor woke up every time I got up to turn on the air conditioning at night and was not a happy baby!

Eleanor enjoyed sweet potatoes on her lanai.

We go the beach all the time back home, but our water is a lot colder than the warm Maui water. The girls had a blast body surfing.

It was a little windy, but that didn’t stop the girls from playing at the beach all afternoon.

Lots of love,

Filed Under: Thanksgiving Tagged With: body surfing, eleanor eating on lanai, eleanor's pooplosion, hula grill, kaanapali beach, maui, plane ride to maui, slappy cakes, tennis, thanksgiving 2018

Fall Bucket List and October

October 5, 2018 by Rebecca Whitehead

At the beginning of Fall (which we started in October since September here is still pretty hot!), we sat down during one of our family meetings and put together our fall bucket list. “Jump in the cold ocean” was the twins’ idea and the pretty much put that down no matter what season it is. We ended up completing our list, except for paddleboarding and making scones (sadly!)

The biker gang: Maliyah, Allie, Amelia and Samantha, with Meredith, baby Corbin, and baby Eleanor tagging along.

We look forward to going up the mountain to Oak Glen every year for apple and raspberry picking, fresh apple cider, mini apple donuts and picking up yummy breads, jams and my favorite flavored vinegars from the country market. This time, Eleanor and I stayed behind while the girls and Jake crossed off their bucket list item.

Playing at Oak Glen after gorging themselves on donuts and hot apple cider:

Swinging outside of someone’s house in our neighborhood.

Checking out a new park in Esencia.

Putting up Halloween decorations and waving to the garbage man.

Soooo many Halloween decorations.

Checking out another park in Irvine and playing checkers.

Dress rehearsal for family pictures!

Jake and I started a weekly date taking tennis lessons, but the girls ended up being interested, so we signed them up too.

They are super silly during lessons, but it’s really helped with their hand-eye coordination and we’ve had fun going to play at the courts on the weekend with the whole family. Thankfully, Coach Elaine has twins of her own just a year older than our twins, so she’s used to the crazy!

Our yearly cookie decorating date with Maliyah, Allie and Corbin. Jodi makes the best sugar cookies on the planet and her girls are very meticulous about decorating them, whereas Samantha, Amelia and Meredith basically dump as much frosting and sprinkles as possible on their cookies, without even bothering to spread.

I went in to school for a few mornings to help Amelia and Samantha’s classes with their Class Platter that they paint for the school’s auction/fundraiser.

There were no other volunteers to paint the the tree, bird design and names, so I took it home to paint. Let’s just say it was not the best looking plate at the auction since I am no artist… the names looked terrible! But it still got some high bids since every mom wanted a piece of class memorabilia and their child’s thumbprint, despite the mediocre artistry.

I helped Samantha’s class with painting the chocolate chips on their Cookies for Santa plate, which turned out adorable. Thankfully, Mr. Michael is a more gifted artist than I, so all I had to do were the chocolate chips!

Samantha was very proud of her planets project.

Eleanor chilling in the playroom.

Amelia taking a break on a walk.

Silly Samantha.

Once it gets close to Halloween, we read “The Chocolate Chip Ghost” story for FHE, complete with stick puppets. The theme is supposed to be about listening to your parents and obeying, but all the girls usually get out of it is asking for more chocolate chips.

Samantha’s block creation.

The girls trying on random costumes at the thrift store while looking for a leather jacket for Jake’s costume.

Normal breakfast shenanigans.

The theme for the school’s Annual Dinner/fundraiser/auction this year was Grease, and it was a blast. The room moms worked our tails off for two months to badger people into donating items and money for the auction, and it all worked out, despite people avoiding us the last week for fear of being accosted to donate. The gift baskets I was in charge of were the “Beauty School Dropout” basket and the “Harvest Basket.”

We decided to take Eleanor with us to the dinner so that my mom, who was in town, would only need to watch the other three… never again! Normally such a happy baby, she screamed and cried on and off for the entire five hours! It was right during her bedtime, but with all the noise, unfamiliar people, and loud music, she was so overtired and just couldn’t sleep. So most of the time, while everyone else was eating, bidding on the silent and live auction, dancing and using the photo booth, I was on the streets of San Juan Capistrano strolling in my poodle skirt with an inconsolable Eleanor, hoping she would fall asleep. Jake took a few turns with her in the Ergo carrier, but to no avail. At least we got some use out of the adorable poodle skirt outfit I got her! Despite her tears, she was the hit of the party for everyone but us.

So many cute baskets up for bid this year.

“Beauty School Drop Out”

A rare moment of silence from Eleanor that night.

There were several bids on the class platters, and wanting to earn more money for the school, I kept bidding up the price, thinking I would definitely be outbid. In the end, I ended up winning both Samantha and Amelia’s class platters, which I hadn’t meant to do! So now we own two very expensive plates that I’ve been trying to get some use of!